Saying Mā Shāʾ Allāh During Adhān

Is there a ḥadīth that encourages us to recite mā shāʾ Allāh after the muʾadhdhin says ḥayya ʿalā ’l-falāḥ, as some people practise?

Answer:

﷽

The practice of reciting mā shāʾ Allāh after the muʾadhdhin says ḥayya ʿalā ’l-falāḥ is found in a statement of Ibn Jurayj, as his student ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Sanʿānī recorded in his Muṣannaf. The text is as follows:

“I was told that people in the past used to become silent for [and listen to] the adhān just as they would become silent for [and listen to] the Qurʾān. The muʾadhdhin would not say anything except that they would repeat his words; until when he says ‘ḥayya ʿalā ’l-ṣalāh’, they would say ‘lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā billāh’; and when he says ‘ḥayya ʿalā ’l-falāḥ’, they would say ‘mā shāʾ Allāh’.”[1]

Since Ibn Jurayj was from among the successors of the successors,[2] it is clear that he could not have heard this directly from a companion of the Prophet ﷺ. It is also not known whether Ibn Jurayj heard this from an authentic source or otherwise. Because he was not a successor, the statement of Ibn Jurayj does not reach even the controversial level of mursal. Rather, it is the statement of someone below the successors narrating from (or, in this case, about) the companions ؓ. Such a tradition, therefore, is munqaṭiʿ (broken)[3] at the very least, which is unanimously graded weak by the ʿulamāʾ.[4]

There are, however, numerous authentic narrations that encourages us to, instead, recite lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā billāh. One such ḥadīth is that of ʿUmar ؓ, as recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, that the Prophet ﷺ said:

Therefore, this is the practice that ought to be adopted, as it is authentically recorded in the books of ḥadīth. As for saying ‘mā shāʾ Allāh’, it would not be permissible to practise upon it for two reasons: